Chapter 80 – Passing By

Their time was extremely tight—Asa was severely injured, but his recovery ability was equally astonishing. The two remaining people in the Valley of Wind were here, but the other three families in the other locations were still unaware of the situation. They could only hope that the illusion of “Katanaphia still being present” could deceive Asa for a while longer.

Among them, Ah Lan was in the best condition. After all, the Valley of Wind was the domain of the wind element, so she hadn’t expended much of her magic. However, Duan Yu’s consumption was more severe.

Lin Wei, on the other hand, was in a much worse state. He had first triggered a forbidden spell, completely draining himself, and then forcibly used the still unfamiliar “Book of Contracts,” leaving his mental and soul power utterly depleted.

After a brief rest, once Lin Wei had somewhat regained his spirits, they headed to the Goddess’s Hall—this time, Lin Wei consciously resisted the influence of the Goddess’s emotional fragments in the hall and successfully plucked the harp strings.

As the semi-master of this place at the moment, he quite conscientiously stepped into the soul passageway first.

The Knight’s Holy Mountain… If it weren’t for the harp “Sigh of the Abyss,” it might have remained buried in the dust of history forever, as no one now knew its exact location. It was only vaguely recorded to be somewhere in the northern mountains. Lin Wei was also quite curious about this place—after all, the knight’s token, the Spear of Longinus, was currently in his hand.

He walked through the gray passage and took his first step into the legendary Knight’s Holy Mountain, trying to take in the scenery.

Lin Wei: “!”

He quickly retracted his steps and hid behind Duan Yu.

“I’m done for,” he thought.

Ah Lan’s barrier wasn’t very sturdy to begin with, and the elemental turbulence of the Valley of Wind had indeed eroded his body. However, the place beyond the passage turned out to be an area with elemental concentration no less than that of the Valley of Wind—if he were to walk through it again, it wouldn’t just be a matter of losing a few years of his life.

Duan Yu, thinking he had seen something terrifying, stepped forward.

Lin Wei keenly noticed that the figure of the mage in front of him froze for a moment.

He poked his head out from behind Duan Yu: “I didn’t expect there to be such a place besides the Valley of Elements…”

He noticed that Duan Yu’s expression was somewhat strange—on this guy’s face, any expression other than indifference was extremely rare, let alone this kind of “inexplicable strangeness.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Seeing that neither of them was moving, Ah Lan also stepped forward to take a look. After observing for a while, she said, “This place feels familiar.”

Duan Yu: “…This is the Valley of Metal.”

Lin Wei: “…”

What happened to the Knight’s Holy Mountain?

How did we end up in… Duan Yu’s territory?

He was suddenly struck with fear, his mind quickly occupied by a thought. He poked Duan Yu with his finger: “Is your father here?”

Duan Yu nodded.

“Then… should we go around or visit your home?”

Duan Yu surveyed the surroundings: “Heading north will take us through the center of the valley.”

Meaning it was inevitable.

Lin Wei instantly felt uneasy. He quietly pulled out a mirror from his space ring to check his appearance—fortunately, it was still somewhat presentable.

Naturally, Duan Yu was unaware of the strange thoughts running through the guy behind him. He condensed a barrier and led the group inside.

At this point, over a thousand years had passed since the Goddess established the spatial marker. Not only had Siren Island shifted with the tides, causing Lin Wei and Duan Yu to fall into the water, but even the location in the mountains had become somewhat inaccurate. They landed on a desolate mountainside, where the mountain wasn’t made of the usual rock and soil but had a faint metallic sheen, hard and sharp.

Duan Yu carried Lin Wei up, allowing him to see the full view of the area. The scenery was secondary; the most striking sensation was the cold, killing intent, as if even the air was sharp enough to cut one’s throat at any moment.

Passing through a canyon, as if the undulating ground had been abruptly flattened, they arrived at a level, open area. A magic array similar in shape to the one in the Valley of Wind silently spread across the entire space, suppressing and burying something that remained unclear to this day.

Unlike the previous magic array, this one seemed more vibrant—if the previous one was like dried blood that had long since congealed, this one resembled fresh, crimson blood.

A mage in a white robe stood up in the center. His hair color was similar to Duan Yu’s, though it was simply tied back. As Lin Wei gradually got a clearer view of this person’s face, he couldn’t help but be surprised by his youth and handsomeness—by the standards of the continent, he appeared to be in his early thirties at most.

The three of them landed in the center of the array—Ah Lan’s brother was still unconscious. He, along with Jerald and Jerald’s palace, had been left in the swamp, the safest place Lin Wei could ensure.

The man seemed surprised by the newcomers but quickly calmed down. After glancing at Lin Wei and Ah Lan, he directly asked Duan Yu, “Do you need something?”

“No,” Duan Yu’s reply was simple and blunt: “Just passing by.”

Lin Wei: “…”

Fortunately, the clan leader didn’t intend to end the conversation there, nor did he pursue the fact of “skipping class,” allowing his son to bring people to “pass by.”

“Passing by?” He raised an eyebrow: “Where to?”

“The Astrology Tower.”

“Tsk,” he said, “Instead of staying on Siren Island, what are you doing in the territory of those lunatics?”

Without waiting for Duan Yu’s answer, the man’s slightly upturned eyes carried a hint of amusement: “It seems my worries were unnecessary… There are actually two little ones at the academy willing to play with you.”

Lin Wei suddenly felt the barrier around him being subtly reinforced, completely isolating him from the omnipresent elemental turbulence.

One of the “two little ones,” Lin Wei, finally calmed down enough to observe the conversation between the two.

“The Valley of Wind is gone,” Duan Yu briefly explained the reason to his father: “The thing sealed beneath is about to emerge.”

“I know.” He suddenly took a few steps forward, leading the three of them to a spot within the magic array. With Lin Wei’s eyesight, he could barely make out that this was where the foundational magic array and the auxiliary array merged, but he didn’t know their purpose.

“‘Kui Ling’ has a connection between the five arrays in the Valley of Elements,” the clan leader, who had at some point cut his wrist, let his blood drip into the deep grooves of the array, making the color even more vivid: “The connection with the Valley of Flame has already started to become unstable. If you want to do something, you’ll need to act quickly.”

Lin Wei saw that the man’s arms beneath his white robe were covered in mottled scars, chaotic yet powerful.

The three of them only stayed here for a short while before being shooed away—indeed, “shooed away,” as the clan leader stated that he had urgent matters to attend to—”no time to entertain little ones.”

Lin Wei glanced back at him from a distance, seeing a tall, white figure standing in the center of the crimson magic array. There was an indescribable sense of loneliness and desolation, yet his back was straight, his expression calm, as if he alone could withstand the killing intent and silence of the entire valley—it vaguely overlapped with the image of Duan Yu in the sea of blood during the final battle of the previous life. In his hand, he now held a slender longsword, drawing something on the array.

“He’s repairing the arrays in the Valley of Ice and the Valley of Wind from here,” Duan Yu explained to Lin Wei.

“But…” Lin Wei hesitated: “This place is also dangerous.”

The man suddenly looked up from the array and smiled at Lin Wei from a distance—his smile was beautiful but carried a hint of mystery that was hard to decipher. He blinked and said, “Don’t worry about me.”

On the way out, Lin Wei once again sorted out his thoughts, adding a few more things to what he already knew.

“The location of the Knight’s Holy Mountain back then is now the Valley of Metal—the Spear of Longinus also carries a strong metal element, and Duan Yu’s feelings and actions on the ship proved that the two are connected,” he thought: “Also, the magic arrays in the five Valleys of Elements are indeed interconnected. The array has a name, ‘Kui Ling,’ named after the academy’s founding generation. This person’s name also appeared in the ship’s registry, and it was quite prominent.”

These two things made the situation even more complex and difficult to understand, but it was ultimately progressing in a positive direction—the more they knew, the more they could eventually make use of.

The Valley of Metal was still some distance from the far north. The three of them continued heading north, the sky sprinkling with fine snowflakes. The towns they passed became increasingly desolate until there were no more signs of human habitation, and the ground beneath their feet turned into thick ice sheets, marking the edge of the far north.

However, their journey seemed to have taken a slight detour. They crossed an endless, bitterly cold ice plain, passed through the Misty Forest, which was unusually dense with water elemental magical beasts, and then flew along a mountain range that seemed to be where Mozier Canyon was located. Not only did they fail to find any place resembling the surroundings of the Astrology Tower as described in the records, but they also stumbled into a dark tide of beasts.

“There are too many…” Lin Wei looked at the scene in disbelief. Thousands of magical beasts—all water element at first glance—filled the sky with flapping Snowthorn Birds and Icewing Beasts. They surged like an unending wave toward a certain place ahead, where a battle was clearly taking place, with flashes of various magical lights.

Ah Lan: “Shall we go there?”

Lin Wei nodded. Sandra appeared, carrying the three of them and charging through the beast tide. Relying on her incredible speed and the advantage of height, she actually managed to carve a path through. They encountered several high-level beasts head-on, but all were dealt with by Duan Yu or Sandra’s Dragon Language Magic.

They were getting closer to the battlefield—but that was no longer a place Sandra alone could approach. The area, which seemed to have a magic barrier, was covered layer upon layer with magical beasts. Ah Lan, with her sharp eyes, glimpsed through the gaps in the beasts’ fur and scales: “Behind that barrier is the Astrology Tower!”

“Let’s go.”

There was no other way but to force their way through. The giant dragon spewed continuous, scorching dragon breath, Ah Lan strung her silver bow, and together with Duan Yu, they attacked the wall of beasts. Lin Wei’s mental reserves were critically low; aside from Sandra, he couldn’t summon any more beasts, and Jerald, who was used for defense, needed to stay in the swamp. So, he only took out the crystal rapier he had obtained from the ship. The sword contained a significant amount of Duan Yu’s magic and could be used as an effective means of attack.

Additionally, the little cat that had followed them out of the academy forcefully crawled out from Lin Wei’s robe. Its short legs nimbly hopped between the corpses of the slain beasts, clearly aiming for fresh magic crystals. Lin Wei had initially been worried about the safety of the little creature that had only been with them for a few days—but seeing the small white figure moving with incredible speed and agility under the temptation of “food,” he relaxed.

The intense battle lasted for quite some time. The three on the dragon’s back gradually approached the barrier. The people inside the barrier seemed to notice the commotion—a female mage in red robes chanted something, and a gap suddenly exploded in the wall of beasts. Sandra took the opportunity to flap her wings, trying to fly into the barrier, but she collided hard with it. Instead, the three of them were thrown into the barrier by the force of the impact—apparently, only humans could pass through.

A gentle force caught the three of them, and the female mage asked, “Where did you come from?”

Lin Wei looked at her deep red curls, azure eyes, and slightly familiar features, then connected it with the fact that they were currently at the Astrology Tower. He suddenly felt the urge to exchange a look with Duan Yu.

—The frequency of running into elders lately was a bit high.